After forty-six days during which people carried their fear with them and withdrew to distant places—or not so distant ones—the permission came to return to the “Dahiyeh” for whoever among the displaced wished to do so. These were the crowds driven out on the day the trumpet of war was sounded, the day of the “great threat,” or, according to another telling, the “great displacement.” Yet this great displacement was not met with a similarly “great” return, unlike what followed the first war—if indeed the two can be considered a first and second war.

Each of us had reasons that justified delaying our return. Some believed that the war had not yet lost its vigor; that it still retained the power to seduce those eager for killing. Others no longer had homes to return to, their houses having ceased to be houses at all. Another group heard a voice calling out, “Do not settle back in,” and obeyed, content only to “catch their breath” and “reassure themselves a little,” though without any measure to define what that “little” might mean. Still others waited for the lease on their displacement home to expire, hoping that completing the month would lessen the burden of the money already paid—a desperate attempt to reduce losses, expenses, and their psychological repercussions. Or perhaps it was a way to spend as much time as possible away from the anticipated anxiety that would return with them to the land of postponed targeting. Some may also have waited so as not to lose the rented house should the “calm” collapse quickly; a reasonable attempt to avoid once again the hardship of searching for another place to rent.

In any case, the time remaining on a rental lease became an important factor in analyzing the political situation in order to assess matters and act accordingly. For example, if the ceasefire happened to come at the beginning of the month, that meant one could comfortably indulge in complete distrust of the treacherous enemy, since the rent had already been paid in advance. But a ceasefire arriving at the end of the month might lead a person to believe that major breakthroughs were underway, not only on the level of the planet, but across the galaxy as a whole. Naturally, it follows that a ceasefire in the middle of the month encourages a more short-term form of anticipation, where the indicators balance each other out and developments are simply awaited.

Meanwhile, there remained another group whispering one of the many prophecies that proliferate and reproduce during wars. According to this prophecy, the 2006 war lasted 33 days, the 2024 war lasted 66 days, and this war, therefore, would last 99 days. No doubt, some landlords were among the strongest “believers” in such prophecies—prophecies that generate money the way clover produces cows’ milk. In any case, the reasons may have differed, but the extension of displacement was one and the same in a country that loves nothing quite as much as extending its endlessly renewable crises.

Returning now to the night of April 17, when the alleged “ten-day truce” supposedly came into effect: in the republics of the “Dahiyeh” and Baalbek, the tribes of “Gog and Magog” celebrated the ceasefire by firing bullets and shells into the air. It was as though “nature” had reached into the quiver of Islamic mythology and found nothing with which to strike us except a scene from the End Times, on the eve of Judgment Day, when the tribes of Gog and Magog—having spread killing and corruption across the earth—shoot their arrows toward the sky, only for those arrows to return stained with blood. One of them then proclaims: “We have conquered the people of the earth and overpowered the people of the heavens.”

The only difference here was that the bullets did not come down bloodstained; they became stained afterward, once they had fallen and were pulled from this person’s shoulder and that person’s foot.

And while this festival of madness was drawing to a close, people continued clawing over who deserved credit for achieving the “ceasefire,” like hyenas fighting over a carcass before abandoning it once they had tasted it. Meanwhile, erasure continued through killing and destruction in southern Lebanon—which had effectively become two Souths, one of them excluded from the “truce.”

On Friday, April 24, the extension of the “ceasefire” for another three weeks was announced, and so we decided to return to the “Dahiyeh,” which had remained forbidden ground to us throughout the days of wandering that had stretched on since March 5.

I moved most of our belongings back on Saturday, leaving only a few things that my family and I planned to take with us the following morning, Sunday, when we were supposed to return for good. But once again, we extended our displacement by another day, waiting to assess a statement issued by the office of the “monster,” Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing orders to “strike Hezbollah targets forcefully in Lebanon.”

What troubled us was that word: “Lebanon.” Which Lebanon did he mean?

Naturally, the first thing I thought about when imagining the possibility of a return to full-scale war was the luggage I had already transported back to the “Dahiyeh.” I wondered whether we still had enough belongings left with us to last until a day when retrieving the moved items might once again become possible. The operation required no more than half an hour of calm to carry out a swift “commando mission.” Like many others from this sect, I had by then acquired a respectable expertise in hauling belongings from home to car and fleeing in record time. 

Thank God, this community had not gone back to being dock porters. We had become porters on our own staircases. Naturally, our dignity remained intact—each of us was his own porter.

In any case, we were still better off than others, since we at least possessed the luxury of extending our displacement by one more day, unlike those who were forced into displacement all over again after that cursed statement.

On Monday, we set out for the “Dahiyeh,” sustained by the fragile conviction that the war was, at least for now, confined to southern South Lebanon. As we entered administrative Beirut coming from Metn, the sound of Israeli drones joined us overhead. An aerial reception. We are no less important than kings and presidents welcomed with air shows. With this absurdity, I tried to strip the drones of their wartime character, to pull them out of the suffocating atmosphere of war.

But how could I erase the sight of the displaced gathered at the edges of the “Dahiyeh”? They had pitched their tents along the western wall of the Pine Residence and across from it toward the Tayyouneh roundabout. They had even set up something resembling a small “express” kiosk and one or two juice stands, while their cars stood parked around them to the right and left. I leave it to the reader to answer this question, and also to interpret the following image as they wish: displaced people from the “Dahiyeh” sheltering beside the wall of the Pine Residence, from which the State of “Greater Lebanon” was proclaimed in 1920.

From Tayyouneh I headed toward Hayy al-Sellom, one of the most miserable neighborhoods of the Shiite proletariat, and one that had borne a large share of the massacres of “Black Wednesday.” Along the road, scenes of the airstrikes I had watched from my place of displacement kept replaying in my mind. I found myself trying to match each destroyed building to its corresponding clip from the bombardments. In some cases, I succeeded; twice I was even able to predict the locations of strikes before reaching them. And naturally, I could distinguish the new destruction from the old.

The “Dahiyeh” felt estranged from itself, from the image it once had before the war. It was full of people, yet utterly empty. I searched for the traffic jam that would delay me a few minutes; for someone crossing the street without looking at the oncoming cars; for the joy of return on the faces that had left exhausted and afraid; for a street vendor pushing his cart through the roads. I found none of it.

Even the air entered my lungs cautiously, just as I cautiously avoided passing near buildings whose shattered remains still threatened to fall apart. The horizon itself felt heavy, incapable of welcoming anyone or bidding farewell to anyone. Even the motorcycles were unusually subdued, unlike the days when they used to leap out of nowhere like demons.

And despite the people and the open shops, I could not help but feel like “the one who passed by a town laid in ruin upon its roofs and said: ‘How will God bring this back to life after its death?’”

I kept thinking that this war would embed itself in the collective memory of this sect the way the “Great Famine” embedded itself in the memory of the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. Since the beginning of the war in 2023, I had heard countless fears voiced by those directly targeted by it—that is, the people of the South, the “Dahiyeh,” and the Beqaa: extermination, death, losing everything, wandering, disorientation, forced displacement, poverty, soaring prices… Yet I never heard the word “famine” except from the people of Mount Lebanon, where I myself had taken refuge. And I believe this war, too, will eventually produce a word that no one but the people of this sect will utter—just as with “famine.” A word capable of containing all this death and destruction; all this oppression, pain, and loss. Perhaps that word will simply be “war” itself. Or perhaps it will be “displacement,” “expulsion,” or something else entirely. The war is not over yet, and we still do not know the full magnitude of the pain for which we will search for a word vast enough to contain it. With such thoughts passing through my mind, I arrived at “our home” in Hayy al-Sellom in relatively record time. I returned home ten days after the “ceasefire.” Ten days that did not shake the world, yet shattered our inner selves and broke apart whatever the war had left intact within us. Ten days in which we learned that our killing, the destruction of our homes, and the erasure of our villages did not invalidate the “ceasefire,” nor even provoke in the world the slightest embarrassment when speaking of preserving it—let alone when scrambling to claim credit for achieving it or shifting responsibility onto others.

The first thing that greeted me—after the fruit vendor’s cart—was a Kalashnikov bullet, its head cracked from striking the ground. Most likely, it was one of the bullets fired during the aforementioned festival of madness. Or perhaps it had been fired for some other reason, and such reasons are countless. In any case, I added it to a fragment of a missile that had fallen near our home in the village during a nighttime bombardment in the first war. No sooner had I slipped the bullet into my pocket than I heard the phrase most commonly exchanged among the residents of the “Dahiyeh” over the past two and a half years: “Thank God you made it back safely.” It comes second only to: “May your loss be compensated by your safety,” or whatever equivalent expression one prefers. Perhaps it would be useful for human development reports to introduce a new indicator measuring an individual’s annual consumption of these two phrases.

“Thank God you made it back safely,” the fruit vendor said to me. I replied in kind—“Thank God you made it back safely”—and continued unloading the luggage from the car, while the vendor went on: “Things aren’t good. It’s been there since morning,” referring to the drone overhead. I heard that exact phrase again from the barber, and later from the shopkeeper from whom I bought an espresso coffee—a small pleasure that had been among the prohibitions of displacement, since there were no “espresso places” where we had taken refuge. With the first sip, I felt that the war had truly ended. A feeling that vanished before I had even finished the cup.

I entered the house and began moving from one room to another, again and again. I opened the refrigerator, the cupboard of glasses and coffee cups. I stared at the books now besieged by layers of dust. Everything was exactly as we had left it. And from the moment I stepped inside, a feeling settled over me and has not left since. A strange feeling, somehow. Perhaps it was anxiety over another departure, or perhaps an unconscious attempt to stop myself from growing accustomed to permanent life in the house before the war had fully ended—a way of sparing myself another breaking of the soul should displacement once again be decreed upon us. I admit that recalling the first moments of displacement almost drives me toward a preemptive displacement of my own, just to avoid being forced out during the critical moment itself. I also admit that revisiting the experience of displacement creates a terrifying contraction of language, exposing the self to extreme emotions that those who endure them can scarcely express. And despite the occasional reassurance that overtakes me, I cannot hide the uncertainty inside me about whether I will even finish writing this text. At any moment, a sudden bombardment could arrive and begin reciting the story all over again from hour zero. That feeling remained with me from the moment I returned to the “Dahiyeh” until just the day before yesterday.

Last Wednesday, Israel bombed Haret Hreik in the first strike on the “Dahiyeh” since the Wednesday that Lebanese people came to call “Black Wednesday.” Those who, until the day before yesterday, had been expecting a single large strike on the “Dahiyeh” have now found some relief from the burden of anticipation. But those awaiting “the return of strikes on the Dahiyeh” or “the return of full-scale war” remain trapped in fear and anxiety. How many are those who wait in dread, and how unbearable are the fear and anxiety haunting the people of this country. A little while ago, I took my laptop out of the evacuation bag—the bag into which I had packed it after the strike the day before yesterday. I took it out so that I could rewrite this text in a way that reflected that strike, and I hope I will not be forced to rewrite it once more, just as I hope I will not have to write another text about another displacement. Needless to say, after yesterday’s strike we packed our belongings all over again. A “precautionary measure,” in the language of embassies and military bases. But in our language—the language of the people of the “Dahiyeh”—it means preparing for a moment that may come late, may come soon, or may never come at all. This constant state of readiness and alert is itself another war, one from which no one will escape. I fear that this permanent state of mobilization will become part of this sect’s culture—a culture passed down from one generation to the next. I fear that perpetual readiness to flee may become the new genetic mutation in this sect’s collective genome. A mutation that may, according to Charles Darwin, help it survive, but deprive it of the ability to truly live.

In any case, we packed our belongings once again. Some people—whether few or many—left the “Dahiyeh.” Those who remained kept asking themselves: Is this strike similar to the assassination of Fouad Shokor? If so, perhaps only a month separates us from another comprehensive escalation. Or is it like the assassination of the Radwan Force commanders, three days before the outbreak of full-scale war? Everyone wishes for this to be the final strike—a one-page appendix at the end of the story. And so the people of the “Dahiyeh” continue living within this reality and through it, waiting to see what the future will throw at them. From anxiety, and back again to anxiety, you return, O son of the “Dahiyeh.” Just a little while ago, my mother woke up to the sound of gunfire—an ordinary occurrence in Hayy al-Sellom. The gunfire may have been part of a festive gathering accompanied by traditional singing, or it may have had no reason at all. Nothing prevents that. Just like that—for no reason whatsoever.

My mother woke up, and I imagine that in her mind were images of the gunfire that used to accompany threats and airstrikes during the war. She asked whether there had been some new threat. “Is there anything on the news?” That was her question. My mother, who had never truly been comfortable with our return to the “Dahiyeh.” I understand the images passing through her mind—the mothers who lost their sons. I understand everything. And there is nothing left inside me except the desire for all this pain to end. Simply to end. 

Whether afterward we live or die.